Wednesday, 27 July 2016

From Getting Going to Letting Go

This is the first talk in a series of six talks on the theme of the five stages of spiritual life given at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre in the Summer of 2016.

Any undertaking which
involves training and learning is a progressive process. Whether it’s
athletics, mathematics, chess, a new language or learning to drive; they all
involve a graduated path, a progressive process. First you have to learn the
basics and gradually you begin to see how everything connects up and by degrees
you gain mastery. When you have really gained mastery you can let go of
everything you’ve learned and all the training manifests in an ability to be
creative.

Spiritual life, which is a
training, ( a metaphor used by the Buddha –e.g. see Bhaddali Sutta)is very
similar; it’s a graduated progressive process. The major difference is that
when it comes to spiritual life we are not talking about gaining knowledge in
an area of expertise, we are not concerned with mastering some particular
discipline; we are engaged in transforming all of us, the totality of our being
and contributing to transforming the world. Spiritual life is not an aspect of
life, it is the whole – it is a response to the existential dilemma facing
every single human being – the inescapable fact of death. This is brought out
in the story of Siddhartha and the four sights: his encounters with old age,
sickness and death represent this existential dilemma facing every human being.

When we talk about following
a spiritual path we are talking about teachings and methods which seek to
explain our situation to us and tell us what to do about it. Following the path
is mastering the teachings and practising the training methods. However that is
not the whole of it, because mastering the teachings and practising the methods
means allowing them to transform us, root and branch, and that means that as we
learn, as we train, we become a new person, a different person and as that
happens our whole perspective on what the training and practice is about also
changes. The more we master the training and practice, and more fresh and new
and meaningful it becomes.

Although Buddhism is often
neatly packaged in a list of stages of a path, it is never quite that simple –
but at the same time it is not complex – it’s just surprising.

We have the threefold path
of ethics, meditation and wisdom; the six perfections of generosity, ethics,
patience, energy, meditation and wisdom; the Noble Eightfold path – perfect
vision, perfect emotion, action, speech, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and
meditation and we have the five stages of spiritual life. All of these and many
others are helpful and if we thoroughly engage with any of these teachings we
will find that they all contain each other; they are just different
formulations of the path – not different paths.

Bhante Sangharakshita has
given talks and lectures on all of these formulations of the path and more and
in more recent years he and Subhuti have been emphasising The Five Stages of
Spiritual Life, perhaps because this formulation brings out the graduated
progressive nature of spiritual life even more strongly than some of the other
paths, and also because it can be more easily correlated with our practices of
meditation, ethics, spiritual friendship and so on.

Over the next few months I
will be exploring this five stage formulation of the path in a series of talks.

The main obstacle to
spiritual life is an unwillingness to change or an unwillingness to change
completely. Sometimes we want to change, but only on our own terms; we only
want to change what we find uncomfortable. But sometimes it’s even more
important to change what we find comfortable. The main requirement for
spiritual life is not intellectual ability, it’s not ability as a meditator,
it’s not the ability to give talks, it’s not about being articulate or clever
or sociable – the main requirement for a successful spiritual life is the
willingness to change – the willingness and ability to change and keep on
changing. We need to be willing to change our behaviour, our ideas, views and
opinions, our ways of thinking, our habits, our circumstances, our lifestyle,
everything – everything is in the melting pot. We may not have to change
everything, but the willingness is a key factor in making progress.

If we are really willing to
change then the training and practices will work their magic on us and the caterpillar
will emerge as a butterfly, the acorn will become an oak tree, we will emerge
from the shell of our ignorance and soar into the skies of wisdom and
compassion.

For all of this
transformation to happen we need to pass through the stages of growth and
development as laid out in the path of five stages – integration, positive
emotion, spiritual death, spiritual rebirth and spontaneous compassionate
activity. The first three of these stages are active, they are something we do,
they belong to the realm of karma. The last two stages are the results of our
practice. However we can also see all of these five stages as aspects of
spiritual life, all of which we need to practice all the time. We could imagine
them as five steps of a stairs – that is the five stages ascending and we could
imagine each step of the stairs as having five different colours – that is the
five aspects – integration, positive emotion, spiritual death, spiritual
rebirth, and receptivity. The Five aspects are what we practice ongoingly – the
colours on the steps – and the five stages are a map of what spiritual life
looks like overall, over a lifetime.

I will be giving a talk on
each stage. This introduction is the first talk. The second talk entitled All Things Great and Small is about
integration and in that talk I will talk about three kinds of integration, I
will talk about how we can become more integrated and I will tell you what I
think are the key practices in relation to integration. The third talk is
called Choosing the Best and is about positive emotion. In that talk I will
talk about the basic choice we have in life, about how we can cultivate
positive emotion, about motivation and faith and about karma. The fourth talk is
on spiritual death and it’s called The Victorious One. In that talk I will go
into what that particular metaphor, spiritual death, means to us and what it
signifies for us spiritually. I will talk about the two paths and their
associated practices and I tell you what I consider to be the key practices
associated with spiritual death. The fifth talk is called A Buddha like No
Other and in that talk I will go to the theme of spiritual rebirth and what
that means for us. I will talk about the place of imagination in spiritual life
and that talk will end with a special surprise. The sixth and last talk is called Getting
Out Of the Way and in that talk I will talk about dharmic responsiveness and
Spontaneous Compassionate Activity. I will have some more to say about faith,
karma niyama and Dharma niyama and the importance of pauses and empty spaces.

Although the path is laid
out like this and is gradual and progressive, the reality can be different. We
might start with a spiritual death experience and then need to go back and
integrate ourselves and develop positive emotion. We may have glimpses of the
nature of reality right from the outset and then need to understand the
conceptual framework, to contextualise our experience. Some people have a
facility for meditation and find it easy to shoot up into the higher dhyanas
and have wonderful peak experiences, even insight experiences and that is good
for nurturing faith. However there is a danger and that is the danger of
misinterpreting experience. Most serious wrong views are based on
misinterpretation of strong meditation experiences. According to the Buddha in
one Mahayana Sutra, we must always check that our experiences accord with the
Dharma before giving them spiritual significance. He says “check whether what
you have experienced accords with the Sutras. If it does not, you should regard
it as a false mental construction.” So this is a recognition that meditation
experience needs to be checked against the teachings of the Buddha, because
wrong views are often wrong interpretations of experience. This also comes out
in the Brahmajala Sutta, where the Buddha lists 62 wrong views which were
around at the time. Many of them were based on meditation experiences.

The Noble Eightfold path
starts with Vision, which could be some kind of Insight or glimpse of reality,
and then comes the transformation. We never really stop needing to integrate,
practice skilfulness, see reality more clearly and so on. Gradually the stages
change from being a discipline or practice to being the spontaneous expression
of our spiritual creativity.

Any formulated path is a
helpful map and compass. We need to travel the path and we may get lost from
time to time or get distracted by detours and interesting side streets. That’s
why it’s not enough to have the map and compass of the formulated path – we
also need friends and mentors to remind us and to guide us. Our friends and
guides may be able to re-inspire us when we lose our motivation or remind us of
our overall purpose when things are not going well. Our mentors may be able to
guide us when we are confused or even when we are over enthusiastic about some
particular method or aspect of training. If we are to benefit from friends and
mentors we need to be receptive. If we are to benefit from a Dharma talk we
need to be receptive.

Listening or hearing is the
first level of wisdom - sruta mayi prajna. We have to listen and to hear the
Dharma first, before we can reflect and meditate on it and begin to embody it.
In order to listen or hear something we need an open mind, not one full of
predetermined ideas and interpretations. We don’t want to be like the professor
in the Zen story – when he went to see the Zen master, the master invited him
to have tea and while pouring out of the tea the master just kept on pouring
even after the cup was full. The professor cried out “my cup is full” and the
Zen master said “yes indeed your cup is full and you are not ready to receive any
teaching come back when your cup is less full.” When we hear these stories we
like to identify with the Zen master, but the point of the story is that we are
more likely to be in the position of the professor. Our cup is too full.

As well as an open mind we
need to be interested and want to learn. But listening is not just a passive
thing. We are so used to being entertained by movies and soap operas and box
sets that it can be easy for us to approach Dharma talks in the same way. We
sit back and wait to be entertained or informed. But listening to Dharma talks
is part of the first level of wisdom and that means it is in itself a spiritual
practice. We have to bring as much of ourselves as possible to the practice and
actively engage. We will need to find our own way to actively engage; some
people take notes because taking notes sharpens your listening, some people
listen again to the recording, some people discuss the talk afterwards with
friends. However we do it, if we are to make the most of hearing Dharma talks
we need to actively engage with them. And of course it is much better to be
actually present when somebody is speaking than just listening on Free Buddhist
Audio later.

So the right spirit or attitude
is important as we listen to Dharma talks, not just these talks but all Dharma talks. The right spirit is one of
active engagement and receptivity. Receptivity is an essential ingredient on
the path which I will visit in the last talk. But it’s worth mentioning it here
at the beginning so that we can all approach these talks in the right spirit,
with the right attitude. The spirit of openness to the Dharma and the keenness
to learn and get different perspectives on things. It’s not about the speaker
of the style or delivery. The speaker also has to have the right spirit and be
receptive to the Dharma. Every Dharma talk is a good talk because the Dharma is
good. Our task is to stay open to that goodness and allow it to touch us.

If you have an open mind and
heart, if you want to learn or as the Scriptures say if you’re ‘eager for
instruction’ and if you are willing to change, then you will have a stimulating
few weeks as we go through this series of talks from getting going with integration
and moving all the way through to the final letting go of the path and
practitioner in the great wave of energy that is spontaneous compassionate
activity. This is the road we are taking, the journey we are embarking on and
here is a quote from Walt Whitman to get us started:

“Not I, not anyone else can travel that road
for you,

you must travel it
for yourself.

It is not far… It
is within reach,

perhaps you have
been on it since you were born, and did not know,

perhaps it is
everywhere on water and on land.

Shoulder your duds,
and I will mine, and let us hasten forth;

wonderful cities
and free nations we shall fetch as we go.

If you tire, give
me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,

About Me

I am a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order (formerly the Western Buddhist Order). I was born in Ireland in 1955 and have lived in the UK most of my adult life. I have been a Buddhist since 1983, when I had a life changing encounter with a Sri Lankan monk in West Berlin, where I was then living.I joined the Triratna Buddhist Order in 1988.